Trial by the Gods
by Christine Cathryn Ver Leth
Summary: Godess child... where is it that you lie... pacing in the never ending cycle.


Envy followed Edward's movements copying each and every movement he made perfectly. "You are a real nuisance aren't you?" He smirked as he began to draw the thin crystal blade of a dagger out of his costume. His reaction time tripled as he went to stab Edward with the edge of the blade. "Yes! I can finally get rid of you!" An insane look crossed his face as the blade drew closer to Ed's heart. All of the sudden he felt his body get weak and begin to lose speed. "What's going on? Nooooo!" He stared down at himself and watched as his body began to disappear "No, No not now!" He began to feel dizzy as he looked over at Ed. His body was also disappearing and he was desperately calling out and trying to reach his brother Alphonse who was on the floor below their balcony. " Al! Al! What's happening?" Ed's voice was full of panic and Envy noticed that he was trying even harder now to reach Al. Al responded but Envy couldn't tell what he said because at that moment he lost consciousness and he plummeted off of the balcony…

"They can't do this to us!" Chrissy fumed as she sat down on her bed. Her friends Beka and Katie were there as well. Beka had placed herself in a beanbag chair in front of Chrissy's TV and Katie was lying on the floor with her gameboy advance xp and a bunch of game's. "Well it seems that they can." Beka replied. All three of them looked gloomily at each other. Chrissy and Katie had been through a lot together and Chrissy had been friends with Beka for a while as well so they all knew each other almost as much as they had been friends forever. Chrissy clenched her teeth. The silence in here made her feel uneasy. She stared at the ceiling and the smiled turning and looking down at Beka with a grin on her face. "Remember how we met?"

Beka looked up from the screen of the TV with a surprised look on her face. "Do I ever!" She smiled up at her friend. "We met at school when you two had your memories erased and came to live in my home realm." Chrissy laughed and stretched herself out on the bed. "Yeah and back then you were one of the only people who ever really talked to me." Katie looked up from her game. "Uh huh, and then remember how long it took for us to get our memories back?" Beka was laughing hard now. "Yeah and remember how you guys got bored when you came back here so you messed with the portal to go back to my realm and then that weird Lizard thing came through and we dressed it up as a person and ran around town with it?" she turned back around and got comfy in the chair. Chrissy started laughing so hard that her bed bounced up and down. "Yeah! And then when we went to bring him back to this realm you followed us through the portal!"

All three of them sat in silence for a while and reminisced about how happy they had been when they had all thought they were normal. "Chrissy?" Chrissy looked over at Katie lying on the floor. She was lying on her back with her eyes closed and her gameboy was lying on the floor above her head so Chrissy knew she was thinking. "Yeah." Katie opened her eyes and looked over at her friend. "What will we have to do while in this room that their sending us to?" Both Chrissy and Beka looked down and stared at the floor. Katie waited for a couple of moments and a worried look passed over her face. "What? What's wrong, why won't you tell me!" Beka started to speak but Chrissy shook her head. " Katie the room their making us spend the 3 days in is a reminiscence room…" Her face was solemn and her voice sounded quiet and shaky. Beka had the same kind of look and stillness of spirit on her face.

Katie looked at both Chrissy and Beka like they were insane. "And what's wrong with that?" she shook her head. "You guys are so weird." Chrissy looked up at her. "You mean you're not afraid?" Katie looked at her funny. "Why would I be afraid of a room with a lot of medieval stuff in it?" Beka looked over at Katie. "Katie, it's a reminiscence room, not a renaissance room." Katie turned her whole body so that she could see both of them better. " Yeah and what does that mean?" Chrissy was the one to answer this time. "It means that when you're in the room you recall all of your memories."

Beka stared at the ceiling of her room. The conversation had stopped after Chrissy had told Katie that they would be in the reminiscence room. They had all just sat there staring at the ceiling until. Chrissy's foster parents had come into the room and told them that they had to go to their separate rooms. Her head shook as she sat on her bed. She looked at the floor and the mess she had left on it when they had called all her and the other 2 into their chambers to talk. There were daggers, handguns, magic artifacts and numerous other weapons lying on the floor of her room in a fashion that somewhat showed that she had been organizing them before she left.

Beka ran through what happened in her head examining what happened. "Something's not right." She whispered to herself. She looked around something was wrong with the way she was recalling it but what? Beka attempted to recreate the scenario in her head again this time thinking about it piece by piece, First they had all just sat there and stared, then the Chrissy's foster parents had come into the room, next she and Katie were told to go to their own rooms so that all of them could be alone, "what happened next?" she kept thinking that they had all left but her mind was saying no. "but if we all didn't leave then who stayed?" Then the answer came to her, Chrissy's foster parents hadn't left Chrissy's room. She had seen Katie leave and she herself wasn't in the room so that was the only logical answer. "I don't want to start something for nothing" she whispered, "I better check the alethiometer"

Beka walked over to her closet carefully treading around, not on, the dangerous objects on her floor. "Okay where did I put it?" she murmured as she dug through the drawers in her closet. Finally she pulled a small compass like object out of a drawer. 'Okay I've got it but how should I ask the question?' She walked back over to her bed and sat back down. 'How about where are Chrissy's Foster parents?' she thought. The hands on the Alethiometer spun around and then after a couple of minutes Beka looked up. "So they did stay, but why?"

She sat there for a while and stared at the wall trying to come up with an answer. Suddenly a voice came out of nowhere." They stayed to help her prepare" Beka jumped up and looked around. "Hello?" She reached down to the floor and picked up one of her daggers. "Who is it?" she paused holding the dagger at the ready. " Well I didn't think you'd forget that fast" She looked at the door with a startled expression. "Steel?" the door opened wider and a man with Steel colored hair and the appearance of someone who had been wandering for a while. "I see none of the three of you have changed."

The man walked over to Beka and placed his hand on her head. "So how are you?" Beka looked him up and down. Steel had been the person that Chrissy had seen who made all of her memories return despite the spell. "I'm fine." Even though Beka had known steel for a while she still was a little wary around him because of the fact that he was a werewolf. She stared at him for a moment. His appearance was the same as the day he left. He wore his long hair tied back the same way he had worn it when he left. She noticed that he also wore the same silver short-sleeved tunic that he had worn when he left. "So you know about what happened?" Steel nodded. "They told me that the three of you went in the restricted zone and brought people back out of it." Beka shook her head yes. He sat down beside her. "Who did you bring back?" She looked up and saw that he was staring upwards but he wasn't really looking at anything. " We brought back some p…p…people from the mortal realm." She stammered with Steel he knew them so well that she it made her feel helpless. Suddenly she felt him staring hard at her. "No one you know?" Beka looked at the floor. Steel only spoke like this when something was bothering him badly and it made her feel uncomfortable. "No." She kept staring at the floor. "Alright." He got up and walked over to the door. "Before I leave tell me, was it you 3 that messed up the passage between the worlds?" Beka looked back up at him. "What do you mean?" He looked at her face and said nothing as he closed the door.

Beka, Chrissy and Katie all gathered in the hall the next morning to talk. "I had the strangest talk with Steel yesterday…" Beka began, but the other two cut her off. "Steel was here?" they both said simultaneously. "Yeah." She said and her eyes met theirs. "He didn't come to see you two?" They both shook their heads no. "Weird." She said as they walked down the hall. "Chris?" Chrissy looked up. She had been staring at the floor. Katie looked at her face. It was cold and eerily calm. "Chrissy what's wrong?" Chrissy turned to her. Her face looked normal now. "Nothing, I'm just preparing my thoughts, that's all." She looked back at the ground. During the whole rest of the walk Beka stared at Chrissy with a worried expression on her face. There was something wrong and she knew it. Finally they stopped a few feet from the gate. "Chris tell us, we have the right to know." Beka stared at her face. Chrissy was the one with the worst temper but when Beka wanted something she could get it. "You know how the Gate was tampered with?" Beka and Katie shook their heads. "Well I went to look at it this morning and…" Chrissy stopped. "And what?" Katie looked at Chrissy to see why she stopped. "And the world that it went to was His world. All three of them shivered. He was one of the fallen, Chris's parents and the other god's and goddesses had banished him to guarding the Door to the ultimate knowledge so that he couldn't cause anymore chaos in the divine realm, but now that he had shifted the gate he was announcing his rivalry to one of the divine. Beka looked at Chrissy with concern on her face. "Who is he announcing is his rival?" Chrissy stood there and stared. "Me."

Beka grabbed Chrissy by the shoulders. "Refuse! If you don't then…" Chrissy looked up and cut her off. "I can't" Beka stared at her "Oh, Sorry" She watched Chrissy's face and suddenly saw. Chrissy had a very strange look on her face one that Beka had never seen her use before. It was a look of helplessness. "Why can't you refuse?" Katie looked at her. "She is of higher status than he is. If she refuses than she loses her wings."

Beka wrapped her arms around her friend. "I'm sorry." Chrissy looked at her. "That's okay, you didn't know." She turned around. "Come on we better get going or we'll be in even more trouble."

Envy looked up. He was alive he could feel it, but there was something wrong with the place he was in. It was like a room but not one he had ever seen. He tried standing up and found that he could move like normal again. He looked at the ground to see if Ed had come with him and almost jumped out of his skin. "Everyone's here…" He paused and looked at some of the other people. He looked carefully at each person to see if it was Ed but none of them seemed to be him. "Maybe he's on the other side of the room. He started to walk towards the next side of the room when he stopped. "Father?" He looked at the man for a couple of minutes and then went to touch Hohenheim's shoulder. "Father! Father wake up." Hohenheim blinked and made a move to get on his feet. "Father were…" Hohenheim held up his hand. Everyone had begun to wake up and they all stopped to watch him as he moved towards the walls. "Even as the light alchemist I never thought that I would ever get to see this place." He moved over to one of the walls and began to touch and trace the drawings of the people, places, and things etched into its smooth surface. "Do any of you know what this is?" he asked his voice shaking with excitement. Envy standing by him shook his head. "No what is it Father?"

Hohenheim was about to answer when al cut in. "Father why is he calling you…" again Hohenheim held up his hand. "I was answering a question Alphonse don't interrupt." He turned back around to trace a violet dragon on the wall and began to begin again. "This is…" Ed got up and yelled. "Will you stop ignoring us!" he stared angrily at his father. "Every time we ask you about something you talk in riddle's to us and that's okay! But if one of those things asks something you automatically answer! What is wrong with you!" he began to pace back and forth. "Brother?" Al reached up to grab at Ed's leg but Ed quickly moved out of the way. "No we have to…" he stopped in mid sentence as a door to the right of him caught his eye. "Al look." He grabbed onto al's armor and moved his head in the right direction. "Wow a door." Al got up and followed Ed over to the empty corridor. "Well we have nothing better to do. Lets go find out where it leads." Ed walked further into the corridor. "Boys wait." Hohenheim called out to them but Ed wasn't listening. "Sorry you bastard. I'm done." He turned around and looked him in the face. "You may be my father but that doesn't mean that I have to listen to you." Then he thought for a second. "Or even like you for that matter." He stood there for a moment and then resumed talking. "For as long as I can remember you haven't been there for us. You were home sometimes, but more often than not you were at a place in the city far away from us." Al came over and wrapped his arms around his brother. "Brother stop." Ed looked up and saw that Al was looking at him painfully. "Brother we need to fix this. Not make it worse." Ed shrugged and dropped his shoulders. "Fine, but he can never fix what he did." He once again faced the opposite side of the corridor and began to follow it down. "Wait! Edward stop." Hohenheim looked at the two boys and made a slight noise in his throat. "I'm coming too." He stepped up to them and grabbed onto Ed's shoulder "Lets go." They stepped out the door and into the corridor. "We can't just let them go alone." Winry paused and then reached down to help her grandmother. "Come on Grandma we have to leave now if were going to catch up to them. As Pinako got up everyone else seemed to follow and soon all of them were on their feet and hurrying out into the hallway.

A strange sensation swept over Ed as he and his father walked with Al through the grand hall of the temple. "Are you sure that this is a temple?" He turned to face his father as he walked. "I mean it looks like more than that to me." His father looked down at him. "I'm not positive, but I think so, yes." He turned and strode in front of them again. "Why is something wrong?" Ed shook his head no. "No but I have this strange feeling that I know this place from somewhere but my feeling is telling me that it is more than a temple." Hohenheim looked at the ceiling thoughtfully for a moment. "Yes you may have seen it someplace else." Ed looked up to see what his father meant but Hohenheim was already on a different subject. "But if this is the temple we must be prepared to not tell anyone or anything about this place." Al looked up at his father. "Why can't we tell anyone?" Ed nodded. "Yeah what's the point in keeping it a secret if someone else will just find out anyway?" Hohenheim murmured something about "The Divine" and then moved back up to the front of the line. "What does the divine have to do with this?" Ed remarked as he and Al walked together along the corridor. "I don't know." Al answered. They walked together for a while and then Al spoke. "Brother." Ed looked up at Al's armor "face". "Yeah." Al pointed behind them. "Do you see anyone following us?" His voice was stiff as if he were worried about something. "Of course there has to be someone following us! I mean they were all there a second ago!" He turned his head to look behind them. "Huh? Where did everyone go?" Ed was still pondering when al gave a stifled cry. "Brother!" he pointed to the hall in front of them. "Where did dad go!" Ed ran up the hall but saw no one. "He left us! That bastard left us!" He slammed his hand down on the marble floor of the temple. "I won't take this anymore!" He grabbed Al's arm and started dragging him towards a large door at the end of the hall. "Brother where are we going?" Ed motioned towards the door "We'll show him alright he won't know what hit him!"

Envy walked at the back of the group with the other homunculus as "Father" had told them to. The only homunculus that wasn't in their little group was Pride and Greed. Pride was walking with the military and greed was with his minions. (Greed-sama: I love my minions; Chrissy: I know you do.) He looked around monitoring all of the people who were here. "See boys this place was used as a temple by the gods." Hohenheim opened his arms wide and turned to look at Ed and Al. "What?" He turned around to look behind him. "Alphonse! Edward! Has anyone seen them?" Envy looked up. "Yeah I saw them go down another hallway a little ways back!" Hohenheim thought for a moment. "Then we all have to go back!" Everyone stared at him for a minute. "Edward is the one who knows where we are supposed to be!" They all stared at him even harder but then started to turn around and walk back in the other direction. Hohenheim once again took his place at the front of the line. "Come on Envy show us where Ed is."

Kimblee wandered the hall of the temple for a while just not even caring what happened to the others. He had split up from the group because to him they had only been slowing him down. He knew what he was searching for and he intended to find it. " It has to be around here somewhere." He murmured as he ascended the stone steps into the crypt below the temple. He had read about places like this before. His mother had had books like this in her hopechest and his grandmother in her old age had also gotten in the habit of having books about this temple lying any old place. He stuck his hand in a crevice in the wall and slowly turned it so that the wall opened up. Yes those were good old times his mother had been a talented and beautiful woman who was kind to those that surrounded her and she always had people around her. That was until he blew her up. Yeah that explosion was the best he had ever gotten from a human. And he was so close to that explosion too. His father hadn't had the same kind of reaction to the explosion as he had though. Oh well, his father didn't live long afterwards anyway so who cared. He wandered the hallway still looking for the door described in his grandmother's book. 'A large door with the four elements, seasons, cardinal directions, and the four totem animals (Bear, Fox, Wolf, Eagle.) As soon as he found that room he would find the 16 orbs. He laughed to himself. Those idiots. They think that they will ever escape this temple without the gods noticing? Well their wrong. Only one thing can get past those egotistical freaks and that was a good explosion. He walked through the corridors watching for the door and its symbols. Each orb in here, the earth, fire, water, and air orbs, the summer, spring, fall, and winter orbs, the north, west, east, and south orbs, and the wolf, bear, Fox, and eagle, orbs could all make an explosion that could wipe out the solar system 400 times over. Oh what fun he will have with them once he finds them, Oh what fun…

Envy watched through the door as the girl writhed on the floor. Her body convulsed rapidly and she was screaming and clutching at her head. "No, NO! Not now!" The only girl out of the three that wasn't screaming was the girl with the wings. At this time she left the girl at the other end of the room and flew over to the girl who was convulsing on the floor. "Beka?" She folded her wings and grabbed onto the girls face. "Hold on Beka I'll help you." She held a smooth shimmering blade above the girl's head. "It'll be okay…"

Chrissy held onto Beka's head. The blade she held shook in her hand as she prepared to bring it down onto Beka's head. "I'll save you Beck …" Chrissy felt Beka's head shake in agreement and she began to feel a little better. "Hold on girl" She closed her eyes and felt the tension mount behind her as she brought the blade down onto her friend's head to save her…

Beka lay sprawled out on her bed. It had been 3 days since the incident. She pulled the alethiometer out from under her blankets and smiled focusing on a question. 'Who will make us win?' She stared as the dial spun around. 'Shut up' She smiled and threw what was left of her outfit from the day before onto the floor. She wouldn't normally do that but today as well as the last two days she had barely been strong enough to get dressed and talk, let alone clean up. "Are you okay?" She turned her head to look at a guy with what Chrissy would call long 'Palm tree' Green hair sitting across the room from her. "Yeah fine." He nodded. "Chrissy is still pissed that we wont tell her what we saw though."


End file.
